Private course closing...

[rd.bittle]

Its a sad day when any course closes. Even more so when someone who has been putting so much work into his dream just can't do it anymore.

 

[mashnut]

In fairness, we can't disagree with TMart's first statement. I accept that either his free public courses are great, or the private courses he's played weren't, but that's his experience. It's contrary to that of many others, but it's his.

TMart's profile shows <10 courses played. With a smaller sample size it's completely believable that he's found better public courses than private so far.

 

[Mando]

There are a lot of things that disturb me about Fossil Hill closing. First of all, it's one of the oldest private courses, having been established in 2000. Although I never played it, John did give me a hole by hole tour in his gator last year. My impression was that it was a classic old school course with a high fun factor.
John indicated that the land was in his family for a couple hundred years and it continued to be worked as a cattle farm. With that in mind, John needed to know when people would be on his land and expected them to respect it.
Unfortunately this policy seemed to rub the average disc golfer the wrong way.
When Harmon Hills opened a mile away on land without cattle and an open door policy, I think Fossil Hill lost some of it's local support.
It's sad that a quality course could be in the ground for a dozen years and not be appreciated, because it happens to have cows,fences, restrictions on play and an owner who is understandably particular about his property. I would have shut it down a long time ago.

 

[Dave242]

Fossil Hill was a very very enjoyable course. I have only played 2 rounds there - one with John as a guide followed by playing it again solo. John is a long time DGer (old timer) who has been actively involved in the sport for ages and has contributed a ton. Among other things, he has done lots of photography work for the sport (maybe still is). John pointed up a hill across a pasture and mentioned that Jerry Harmon lived up there and was planning his course at that time. HH is on my bucket list for sure.

When I played (probably around 2004), he had a pro shop and I believe that his supply of discs was the main source of plastic in the Tri-Cities area. That was a certain plus of that course. A negative was that he had a small herd of cattle on the land (10-20 head if I remember right), and so opening/closing gates was a huge concern as was safety on certain holes. And cow pies.

I loved that course....especially the holes up on the hillside in the woods. 5.0+ disc golf up there....but the open holes, although they were fun, took the overall experience down a notch for me and my personal preferences.

Very sad to see this course go!

 

[Mando]

It's unfortunate that folks were/are not able to appreciate Fossil for what is was, a beautiful, rolling cattle farm that enabled a secondary use (disc golf). Instead the focus was always on the farming elements/restrictions that may have interfered with their personal disc golf experience.